Custom or "one-of-a kind" ceramic and metallurgical work requiring precise and artistic manipulations of small items, often involves delicate, manual manipulations, usually with the aid of high precision tools. An example of such a fine motor task is very evident in manufactured dental work of all types, including dentures, crowns and bridge works. The manufacture or modification of small, custom dental components with highly specific tolerances requires work benches or work stations that are functionally designed for the task.
Additionally, the materials employed for projects of these types, especially fine dental work, are often precious and any waste results in a significant potential for lost revenue. Gold, platinum and silver are typical metals employed for such fine dental work and jewelry work. The efficient dental technician, goldsmith or jeweler must recover as much of these precious metals as practicable.
Also additionally, the generation of dust, be it precious or not, may constitute a respiratory hazard to the worker. A wide variety of masks and vacuum systems are available to minimize such impacts, and many systems have collection mechanisms for the recovery of valuable dusts and waste chips generated.
An early example of a dental work area is found in U.S. Pat. No. 1,896,772 to Drespel, which shows a dental slab or work table having funnel shaped cavities for the collection of materials from the slab. Drespel '772 relies on gravity flow and is directed primarily to liquid material recovery, and so fails to teach the use of air to direct the flow of material to the slab.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,184,251 to Kuboki shows an instrument of processing artificial teeth that also includes a gravity collection system for the grindings produced. Like Drespel '772, Kuboki '251 also fails to include an air conveying system for trapping grindings and relies only on deflection and gravity to collect them. For trapping and collecting smaller, valuable grindings and also respirable dusts, an air circulation system is needed.
An advance in the area of air circulating work benches is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,083 to Cattani discloses a work bench for dental technicians and goldsmiths that includes a cowl and a suction system to entrap particulate generated from the work performed within the work bench area. A problem with Cattani '083, which is a typical problem found in all devices that employ suction systems for particulate collection, is that the device requires a high efficiency particulate filtering system external to the work bench. The initial expense and operational noise associated with such systems are discouraging too many potential users. A work bench is needed for dental technicians, goldsmiths and jewelers that does not require an elaborate suction and collection system.
Another example of a suction dental work table is found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,533 to Kantrowitz et al., which discloses a portable work bench attachment equipped with a suction tube. Like Cattani '083, Kantrowitz et al. '533 requires an external vacuum source to remove material from the work table. A failing in Kantrowitz et al. '533 is the lack of a collection mechanism for the vacuum.
A small, table top work station that includes an efficient and economical air flow dust collection system is needed. Such a work station must have the ability to entrap salvageable particulate and additionally provide some measure of respiratory protection for the user of the system.